An essay,
Reproduction to Destruction.
On reproductive rights.
Reproduction to Destruction.
Written in 2018.
Reproduction is essential to the success and continued existence of any civilization. Not only must a society create new productive members at a sufficient rate, but the culture surrounding reproduction is also vital for the health and well-being of the people. As drastic changes infiltrated American society with the creation of mass production in the early twentieth century and the reemergence of the Religious Right in the 1980’s, writers such as Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood questioned the fate of the United States, and ultimately, the world. Leery of the future effects of technological advancement, Huxley created an all-powerful state founded on an assembly line of babies, while Atwood, anticipating a restoration of the repressive ways of the past, imagined a totalitarian nation in which reproduction is no longer a fundamental human right. Claiming that a future without individualism, free will, and secularism will result in a loss of reproductive rights, Huxley and Atwood’s dystopias reflect the fears of American society at the time in which they were written.
Although influenced by different historical events, both Huxley and Atwood argue that a lack of human individuality within society creates fear for the future of reproduction. In the early 1900s, as mass-production spurred society into an era of consumerism, American life was transformed as individuals became increasingly materialistic. With technological advancements developing at a rapid pace for a cheaper price, society welcomed the revolutionary changes; but as machines began to replace manual labor, civilians feared that soon, they too would become interchangeable parts to one giant industrial machine. Reflecting such insecurities, Huxley creates a world where offspring are developed at the hands of technology using Bokanovsky's Process, producing dozens of identical eggs and depriving human beings of their individual natures. Fearful of a future overrun by the pleasures of technology, Huxley comments on the potential for reproduction to simply become a byproduct of a functional society. With similar fears in mind but a different revolution in motion, Atwood, living in a society during the Christian Fundamentalist Movement of the 1980’s, uses the totalitarian state of Gilead to comment on the prioritization of functionality over individuality. Believing that the reemergence of strict traditional values would result in a loss of women’s reproductive rights, Atwood creates a world that simply reduces women to their fertility and a title, seeking to deprive them of their individuality and ensure their position as compliant carriers of the next generation. Similarly, Huxley uses “soma,” a drug designed to keep individuals from experiencing personal negative emotion, to keep the characters within Brave New World compliant with the society they are trapped within. When Bernard, one of the few individuals who is discontented with the societal uniformity states “[he’d] rather be [himself]... [himself] and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly” (Huxley 89) after being pressured to eat a “somasunday” in order to rid him of his concerns, he is considered a hindrance to the functionality of society, one who will face great punishment as a result. Creating a parallel between his dystopia and the reality of the 1930s, Huxley portrays his characters as interchangeable parts in a world in which social stability comes before diversity and genuine emotion. Additionally, when the mantra “everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley 43) is whispered to the developing embryos while they are sleeping, they are conditioned to believe that no relationship is more significant than another, for a collective, functioning body is more important than the individual person. Correspondingly, relationships within The Handmaid’s Tale are heavily frowned upon, as they would disrupt the social order of using the female body as a tool for producing offspring and maintaining the functionality of society as a whole. When the main character, Offred, is in the bathtub reflecting on how she used to view her body as pleasurable until “the flesh [arranged] itself differently... [into] a cloud, congealed around a central object, which is more real than [she is]” (Atwood 73), Atwood describes a haunting return to the days in which women were not allowed to be considered more than just a womb and a set of ovaries. With their nightmare depictions of a society in which reproduction is simply an asset to create functionality and women are no more than objects, Huxley and Atwood highlight the fear of the twentieth century that stems from a lack of individualism in American society.
With the belief that technological advancement and a new religious order will result in the loss of free will, Atwood and Huxley create nightmare representations of what reproduction in twentieth century America could soon become. Alarmed by the growing anti-abortion sentiments and rise in anti-female religious groups in the 1970s and 1980s, Atwood was fearful that an America at the mercy of a right-wing dictatorship was just a matter of time. Imagining that constitutional rights were on the brink of destruction, Atwood distinguishes between two different kinds of freedom within the state of Gilead: freedom to and freedom from. In earlier times, women received “freedom to. Now [they] are given freedom from” (Atwood 24). While women receive “freedom from” violence, they no longer possess the “freedom to” make their own choices. Although no longer at risk of being raped by unfamiliar men, the women of Gilead are now subjected to state-sanctioned rape by their Commanders, losing their reproductive rights in order to maintain a consistent flow of offspring. Similarly, in the “Brave New World,” citizens are forced to give up basic components of civilization, such as a mother figure, romantic interaction, and freedom of expression. In return, they are freed of “the temptations and the lonely remorses, ... the diseases and the endless isolating pain, ... the uncertainties and the poverty” that often come along with “feeling strongly” (Huxley 41). Mustapha Mond, a figure of power within the novel, convinces impressionable young boys that this suppression of emotion is the key to stability within the World State. Amid an abundance of new consumer goods and therefore major developments within the advertising industry in the early 1930s, Huxley uses the character of Mustapha to represent the fear that commercials, subliminal messages, and suppression of truths could result in the unconscious manipulation of American citizens. Additionally, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood claims that people will endure oppression willingly as long as they are given some semblance of freedom or reward. Offred recalls her mother stating that it is “truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations” (Atwood 271), and Serena Joy, the wife of Offred's Commander, is a prime example. Although she holds no power within the male world and is subjected to viewing sexual interactions between her husband and Offred, Serena delights in the authority she possesses within her own household. The minimal power Serena is given to assert her dominance over Offred is compensation for her exclusion from Gilead’s process for creating new offspring. Likewise, those living within the “Brave New World” are socially rewarded for promiscuity and possessing a lack of commitment to those they are sexually involved with. Although heavily oppressed in terms of their freedom to love another or have children, civilians accept such conditions in exchange for the respect they receive from other members of society and the government. Because the New World lacks emotional involvement, it also lacks pain: distracted by such pleasures, “people are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get ... And if anything should go wrong, there's soma” (Huxley 220). With a lack of exposure to their own true feelings instilling the belief that they still “get what they want,” individuals willingly accept the tyrannical rule, and loss of reproductive rights, within The Brave New World. Whether concerned by desensitization to oppression as a result of technological distraction or worried about the loss of basic freedoms at the hands of a strict religious regime, both Huxley and Atwood reflect American fears that a decrease in free will could result in the loss of reproductive rights.
Although writing of the doubts of the American people within two different time periods, both Huxley and Atwood claim that a decline in secularism will result in great consequences for the future of reproduction. Huxley creates a world state in which religious followers are transformed into a consumerist cult, with Henry Ford, the creator of mass-production, acting as their “God.” Fearing that an increase in intolerant religious views combined with the rapid growth of industry in the 1930s will result in a supreme reverence for technology, Huxley forms a society based entirely on mechanization, including the creation of children through scientific means. Atwood, on the other hand, fearing the intolerant anti-female religious groups springing up around the 1980s, creates a world with basic religion at its foundation, but with a governing rule based entirely upon intolerant and extremist forms of Christian belief. For example, certain segments of the Bible that glorify marriage, emphasize meekness and humility, and exonerate men from the consequences of adultery in order to maintain childbirth, are selected, made into law in Gilead, and used to control the behavior of the Handmaids. Atwood uses such laws to construct the “Ceremony,” in which the reproductive rights of the individual are taken away, justified with excerpts from the Bible. At the beginning of every Ceremony, during which the Commander has sex with the Handmaid while she lies against the Commander’s wife, an excerpt from the Bible is read in which a woman named Rachel is unable to conceive with her husband, Jacob: “[Rachel gives] him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son” (Genesis 30:1-3). The religious text describing the bringing of a “handmaid” into a marriage to create offspring is the fundamental idea behind Gilead, and a driving influence and justification for the loss of reproductive rights within the totalitarian society. Similarly, the “Brave New World” uses “religious” practices, such as the Solidarity Service of individuals chanting about promiscuous ideals and community values, to further condition society into following government regulations of stability and uniformity. Beginning with “Orgy-porgy, Ford and fun, Kiss the girls and make them one,” (Huxley 84) the chant reflects the aim of the New World to create humans as identical as the products created with Ford assembly lines, bringing societal members together to rally behind the totalitarian ideal. The last line of the chant, “orgy-porgy gives release,” (Huxley 84) maintains its goal of influencing civilians by reeling them in to the “religion” with a means for experiencing the “release” that they no longer receive from the old ways of reproduction. Using religion as a tool to create an illusion of strong emotion, Huxley prevents those living within the New World from posing any real threat to the power of the State. Amid concerns over the power of religion in the twentieth century, Huxley and Atwood argue that a transition from secularism to spirituality could be detrimental to the future of reproduction in America.
As reproductive rights continue to be a controversial topic within society due to the debate over abortion, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Margaret Atwood’s TheHandmaid’s Tale reflect sentiments still relevant to twenty-first century America. Although based upon the growth of consumerism in the 1930s in Huxley’s case and the Christian Fundamentalist Movement of the 1980s in Atwood’s, the American fear that reproductive rights could be lost appears to be timeless. Although divided in their influences for creating their dystopian worlds, both Atwood and Huxley share a similar belief that a loss of individualism, free will, and secularism could be the end of the interconnected society to which America has grown so accustomed